Long Description:On September 14, 1940, the Lodwick School of Aeronautics began flight instruction in Lakeland by contract with the United States Army Air Corps. Owned and operated by Albert Irvin Lodwick, the school had an initial enrollment of 40 cadets, a peak enrollment of 300, and almost 500 civilian employees. An outgrowth of one of the nine original schools in the AAC pilot training program, the Lodwick School of Aeronautics was the first primary school to open in the Eastern Flying Training Command and one of the last to close. When the school closed August 7, 1945, it had graduated over 6,000 American and 1,200 British pilots.